Whitepaper: LinkedIn Hack and Cracking Passwords

LinkedIn was breached in 2012 with a reported 6.5 million user accounts compromised. LinkedIn sent a request to known hacked users advising them to change their passwords. However, on May 16, 2016, 117 million LinkedIn accounts–reportedly from the 2012 hack–were found to be up for sale on a hacker site. LinkedIn stated that after the initial 2012 breach, they added enhanced protection, most likely adding the “salt” functionality to their passwords. However, if you have not changed your password since 2012, you do not have the added protection of a salted password hash. You may be asking yourself–what on earth are hashing and salting and how does this all work? Learn more about this hack and how passwords should be protected more rigorous with the heightened number of cyber-attacks happening.